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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Google’s new Street View mapping service causes some embarrassments
Google’s new mapping service, Street View – launched on Friday – is already causing embarrassment and has had to remove some images from its files. The system allows users 360 degree views on streets – and the houses in them – in 25 cities. Users type in an address in one of these cities and the Google cameras home in on the area.
Google had agreed to protect privacy by blurring faces and car registration plates in any senstive images. However, on release, complaints were received that led to Google removing embarrassing images such as that of one man emerging from a London sex shop and another throwing up outside a pub.
The rich, famous and protected have their privacy secured at source, hoever. The house of Google’s owner does not appear and Tony Blair’s London house in Connaught Square, which was on the map at the launch, has since been removed.
Daily Mail says Arduaine Garden to close in three weeks
The Daily Mail has said that Argyll’s Arduaine Garden, to be closed by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) as part of a cost cutting exercise affecting 11 NTS properties, is to close in three weeks.
Repeated efforts by For Argyll and other news media to get some indication from NTS of the plans for the future of the garden and for the timescale of its closure have met only with the response that nothing can be said until there is something to say.
For Argyll then published some authoritative locally sourced information that Arduaine was to close in seven weeks and would not be allowed, as had been anticipated, to see out the coming season first.
The Daily Mail’s article is notable for giving no accreditation of its source for the quoted closure date of three weeks and the rest of the piece is recycled material on the garden drawn from other publications.
While this casts doubt on the authenticity of the three-weeks-to-closure announcement, it may add weight to the general perception in Argyll that Arduaine’s accessibility to the public may have a short time to run.
There has been widespread anxiety and anger in Argyll over the management of this decision by the NTS. This has been manifest in emails to For Argyll and in letters to local and national papers.
For Argyll has suggested a community buy out. A resident of the Isle of Seil, Sheila Downie, in a letter to The Herald, has suggested that Arduaine could be re-opened on a care-and-maintenance basis under the current head gardener, Maurice Wilkins, covered by visitor revenues. Ms Downie sees this being done under the Scotland’s Garden Scheme.
Scotland leads a new communism – from Argyll to Applecross
For Argyll has been watching with interest a significant political development – the growing tendency for communities in Scotland to take charge of the resources critical to their sustainability.
This process began on Monday 1st February 1993 when the Assynt Crofters’ Trust in north west Scotland became the owners of the North Lochinver Estate. They bought it after a prolonged campaign in the aftermath of the liquidation of its then owner, Scandinavian Property Services Ltd – and renamed it the North Assynt Estate.
This was the first of what we now call ‘community buy outs’ and followed the break up of the estate into seven lots for sale under Edinburgh estate agent, John Clegg & Co.
Crofters were concerned about this plan for two reasons:
- The boundaries of the lots cut across grazing land. This created the possibility of some crofters would have to deal with more than one landlord
- The crofters anticipated that some of the lots would be administered by the new owners themselves rather than by professional factors (estate managers).
This community buy-out was followed by a series of others across the Highlands – the islands of Eigg and Argyll’s Gigha, estates in North Harris and South Uist in the Western Isles and on the Isle of Raasay.
The Herald estimates that the 100th community buy out is now in process with a bid from the Evanton Wood Community Company north of Dingwall to buy 64 acres of woodland from the Novar Estate.
While these developments have been both enabled and fuelled by the Land Reform Act, recent Community buy outs have moved from land to properties crucial to community sustainability.
An Aberdeen town bought former bank premises to convert to a centre for community cohesion and enterprise. In Argyll, the village of Tayvallich has bought a core business of petrol pumps, shop, post office and cafe.
In a different move to take charge of its own destiny, the community of Applecross in Wester Ross – which took over ts own petrol pumps in 1995 – has just appointed a new doctor as a result of its own activities. Alarmed by the prospect of the vacancy not being filled, with remote areas traditionally struggling to find applicants, Applecross left nothing to chance.
It set up a website dedicated to finding a new doctor. It stressed its unique resources as a small, friendly community with access to stunning outdoor activities – hillwalking, climbing, sea kayaking, sailing, fishing – and trumpeted the mountains of Torridon, Skye and Achnashellach and the waters of the Sound of Raasay. It advertised in outdoor pursuits magazines as well as the British Medical Journal.
It attracted interest from all over the world, in sixteen applications from Arizona to Lithuania to Poland and has now appointed Dr Mark Derbyshire from Chepstow, a keen hillwalker and fisherman.
Applecross is currently the focos of the televisoin series, Monty Hall’s Great Escape but Dr Derbyshire didn’t even know about this until after his appointment. It was the community’s own campaign that caught his attention.
The initiatives of these communities are together in the early days in terms of a movement but it is in fact an evolved form of communism.
The earlier communism of reds-under-the-beds frights (and whose demise was recorded in Francis Fukuyama’s book, The End of History and the Last Man), was a monolithic, centrally controlled command economy where, as legend has it, everyone had shoes but all shoes were brown and not necessarily the right size.
This new communism is localised and demand-led, born from local need. It sees people getting together to act in the common local interest, embracing enterprise and moving into management through the establishment of development trusts.
The growth of a dispersed micro politics is an inevitable consequence of the information explosion. Today’s communities are less dependent and much better informed. The enterprise and new energies in Gigha, with long term community development strategies sitting alongside the delivery of short terms solutions is proof, here in Argyll, of what can come of this. Exciting times.
The photographs above are, from the top:
- Ardvreck Castle in Assynt, taken by copyright holder, Richard Baker and reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
- The breathcatching Bealach na Ba (the Pass of the Cattle) from Loch Kishorn over to Applecross. Until the late 20th century, this vertiginous single track road, hanging above the swallow-hole of a deep dry valley, was the only access to Applecross. The photograph was taken in 1975 by Anne Burgess who owns the copyright. It is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
Call to return William Wallace Safe Conduct letter to Scotland
Christine Grahame, South of Scotland MSP, has tabled a parliamentary motion calling for the return to Scotland of a letter written by Philip IV of France, guaranteeing William Wallace safe conduct to visit Pope Boniface VIII.
She has also put down a question asking if Scottish Ministers will make a formal request for it to be transferred to the National Museum of Scotland from the Nation al Archives at Kew, where it is held.
The Safe Conduct letter was acquired when Wallace was captured at Robroyston in 1305 and subsequently found guilt of treason and put to death in too barbaric a fashion to contemplate..
Ms Grahame feels that the repatriation of the Wallace Safe Conduct would be appropriate in this year of Homecoming. She points out that its significance is enhanced by the fact that there are very few items of any kind known to have been handled by Wallace.
Another is the 1297 Lubeck Letter which Murdo Fraser MSP last year asked to be returned to Scotland.
This was sent to the merchantmen of Lubeck and Hamburg by William Wallace and his northern ally Andrew Murray to let them know that Scottish ports were open for business again, a month after the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
The Lubeck letter is the single surviving document actually issued by William Wallace. It bears an impression of his seal and is held in the German Baltic port of Lubeck.
Ms Grahame is not the first to call for the return of the Safe Conduct. This was a focus of historian David R Ross’s Walk for Wallace in 2005, with an online petition calling for the return of the Wallace Safe Conduct. This has around 2,000 signatures.
Scottish Government backs away from forest leasing
The Scottish Government has announced that it is not to pursue the forest leasing scheme. The plan was to lease 25% of Scotland’s forest estate for 75 years an to use the revenue generated to pay for climate control measures.
Highland MSP, Jamie McGrigor, says: ‘Having attended the packed forestry public meeting in the community centre in Lochgilphead in Argyll earlier this year where I listened to points made by many concerned constituents and having seen the published responses to the government’s consultation on this matter, the vast majority of which were against the leasing scheme, I believe this to be the right decision by the government’.
Fellow Highland MSP, David Stewart says: ‘“I lodged a series of parliamentary questions on the subject and also raised the issue a number of times, including in the recent parliamentary debate. From the answers that I have received, the bottom line is this: the idea came from City of London bankers Rothschild, which was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite privatisation bank. The proposal has been widely condemned across the political fold and the vast majority of consultation responses were extremely critical’.
It is fair to say that the proposal generated much heat rather than much genuine debate. The only debate worthy of the name was in Holyrood where facts actually did enter an exploration of the issues involved.
Apart from that, the parties opposed to the current Scottish Government seized the chance of political gain at the expense of reason and of properly informing their constituents.
The then Environment Minister Michael Russell repeatedly issued unequivocal assurances that jobs would not be lost, access to forest amenities would not be affected, the role of Forestry Commission Scotland would not be diluted and monitored wildlife protection would be part of any deal. These assurances were so absolute that the Minister’s credibility would have been irretrievably damaged were they not genuine.
However, opposition politicians ignored the assurances, did not trouble their constituents with facts but engaged energetically in low rent scaremongering devoid of information and evidence.
And it has worked.
No one emerges from this with any credit.
- Voters have allowed themselves yet again to be mindless pawns in other people’s political games
- Politicians have shown themselves to be more interested in their own party political gain than in Scotland’s future and in its ability to pay for what it needs to do
- The Scottish Government has failed to carry the debate to the people and, in accepting the political reality that scare tactics succeeded, it has retreated from a considered policy with no clear alternative in place.
The result is a mess to which we have all contributed.
It is a serious concern that one of the possible options new Environment Minister, Roseanna, Cunningham is touting, would see Scotland going back to the very bad old days of tax incentives for tree planting. This left great swathes of the countryside hidde from view, cloaked in commercial pine forests which, when harvested, leave the landscape looking like a post-Hiroshima disaster area. But hey, it lined the pockets of investors like Cliff Richard, Terry Wogan and the Queen.
This pre-devolution private enterprise afforestation ruined several of Scotland’s significant natural environments- like the flow country, now in long term rehabilitation. A post-devolution reintroduction of this scheme would see Scotland willfully inflict this sort of damage on itself.
The simple facts are that we have to capture carbon and we have to find the money from somewhere to pay for this and other vitally necessary measures to counter climate change. Scotland does not have the devolved powers for an adequate control of its economy. The money for environmental protection has to come from somewhere. This was an intelligent option which was irresponsibly undermined and has now been summarily abandoned.
Why was it not given another year of consultation, with the Government carrying the debate seriously and with commitment to the people?
It’s easy to understand a minority administration bowing to real politique, given the extent of the opposition raised. It’s also easy to understand a new Minister’s reluctance to face rabble rousing before she is in command of her brief.
Backing away from the proposal, however, is a political mistake.
- It allows it to be said that the proposal was ill thought.
- It leaves supporters of the proposal now wondering if in fact this accusation was right all along.
- It puts petrol in the tank of the old politics of fact-free scare mongering.
- It leaves Scotland prey to alternative measures with very real negative impacts – like tax incentives for tree planting.
And it leaves Roseanna Cunningham looking like a weak Minister, not a wise one and not a force to be reckoned with.
The photograph above, of sitka spruce forest, is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
Accident on A828 in north Argyll
Yesterday afternoon, 13th March, a car left the road south of Appin, near Creagan in North Argyll. No other vehicles were involved.
The road was closed in both directions and the Police arranged diversions.
A man was airlifted to hospital and it is understood that there were no further casualties.
The other Rothesay
Argyll’s Rothesay on the Isle of Bute is, of course, ‘the other Rothesay’ if you’re living in the Rothesay in New Brunswick in Canada. But since we’re here in Argyll in Scotland and we’ve been galvanised by the This Is Who We Are exhibition which we may see in Argyll, , it seems fun to take a look at our ‘other Rothesay’.
The New Brunswick town is culturally rich. Its gene pool encompasses its earliest inhabitants, the First Nation Maliseet and Mi`kmaq, French colonists and English settlers.
Rothesay in New Brunswick was so named by a whim of the then Prince of Wales,who later became King Edward VII, because it reminded him of Rothesay in Bute. The current Prince of Wales of course goes undet the title of Duke of Rothesay when he crosses the border from England into Scotland. The affection for Rothesay on Bute is clearly a family legacy enshrined in this title.
New Brunswick’s Rothesay developed as a centre for shipbuilding and later became a summer watering hole for the wealthy elite of the nearby city of St John’s, supported by the launch of the European and North American Railway in 1853. (The track is visible in this photograph.) There is a sort of a parallel here wiht Rothesay in Bute – but with a class difference. Day trips to Rothesay in Bute and summer holidays there became the tribal holiday pastime for the working class in the city of Glasgow to whom Rothesay was ‘doon the watter’. Rothesay’s seaside resort history is recorded in many of the films in the Scottish Screen Archive.
The history of Rothesay, New Brunswick, shows in the pre-Canadian Confederation nature of some of its houses. The Victorian and Edwardian past of Rothesay on Bute is also evident in many of its buildings from the Victorian neo-gothic glories of Mount Stuart House to the delights of the Victorian lavatories on Rothesay Harbour.
The New Brunswick town is home to a notable private school, Rothesay Netherwood School. The school on Rothesay is Rothesay Academy, part of a new joint campus created by Argyll and Bute Council’s education department.
Rothesay Netherwood School has the distinction of having been home to John Peters Humphrey. Humphrey was educated at Rothesay Collegiate School, later Rothesay Netherwood School. He went on to study law at Canada’s renowned McGill University and then became a member of its law faculty.
He was appointed as the first Director of the Human Rights Division in the United Nations Secretariat after the second World War in 1946 and was a principal drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights published in 1948.
While Rothesay in New Brunswick is almost twice the size of Rothesay in Bute – with a population of around 11,600 as opposed to 6,000 and, as an equally easy going town, is only ten minutes away from the city of St John, the two Rothesays share some similarities.
Both are attractive waterfront towns – Rothesay in Bute on the great Clyde waterway and Rothesay New Brunswick on the majestic and evocatively named Kennebecasis River. Rothesay in Bute is almost a single community with neighbouring Port Bannatyne. And in 1998 the township of Rothesay in New Brunswick became the town of Rothesay, meged with its neighbouring communities of East Riverside-Kingshurst, Fairvale, Renforth and Wells.
There is a lovely piece of public sculpture in Rothesay New Brunswick, commemorating their rowing victory at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris, defeating England’s famed Tyne Crew on the Kennebecasis River.
One phemenomenon the two towns do not share – yet – is economic growth. Rothesay New Brunswick. The Canadian town has see almost 15,000 square metres of commercial development over the last two years and in planning are developments that will add a further 10,000+ square metres. The area describes is work force as highly educated and rapidly growing.
There is, of course, another link for both the Scottish and Canadian Rothesay’s to explore. New Zealand’s North Island has Rothesay Bay, another waterfront community and part of North Shore in Auckland on its east coast. The This Is Who We Are exhibition’s organisers might well be interested in a tripartite exchange, opening all three sets of doors.
Some additional links are:
Photographs
The photographs accompanying this article are reproduced by permission and have been given to For Argyll to use by Mary Jane Banks, Director of Administrative Services at Rothesay, New Brunswick.
They show, from the top:
- The Town Hall at Rothesay, New Brunswick
- The old Station House with the track of the European and North American railway in the foreground
- Rothesay Netherwood School and the School’s Chapel
- The annual Dragon Boat Festival at Renforth Wharf on the Kennebecasis River
- The sculpture commemorating the Paris rowing victory over England’s Tyne crew in 1867
- Dusk at Renforth Boat Club on the Kennebecasis River, underlinging the common waterfront lifestle of the two – the three – Rothesays.
Fears over pace of National Trust closure of Argyll’s Arduaine Gardens
With the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) remaining resolutely silent and unresponsive to calls for answers from the media, local rumours are running high in Argyll over the details of the planned closure of Arduaine Garden.
Staff were informed of the decision in parallel with the release of information to the Press, giving them no chance to absorb the personal and professional impact on their lives before everyone else got the news.
When the planned closure was made public, it was assumed that Arduaine would see out the coming season before closing – largely because this would be a logical business perspective.
However it is now thought that the Garden is to close in around seven weeks time.
Maurice Wilkins, who leads the team at Arduaine, currently running its Snowdrop Festival, has worked there for around 25 years and lives in a tied house in the Gardens. The impact on all aspects of his life must be utterly disorientating and unnerving.
As For Argyll has reported, the sceptical view is that the new regime at NTS was already planning the status chage to the eleven properties concerned, as part of its restructure-to-survive strategy and used the cover of the recessionto do it now.
Whether or not this is the case – and its plausibility is supported by the time plans of this nature would take to produce – the NTS have handled the annoucement very badly.
NTS management thinking does not seem to have embraced the different consequences of closing a property and a garden. A property to be completely closed can be mothballed. A garden can not. In the case of Arduaine, the qustions to be asked involve first the situatiuon of the staff and then the position of the garden itself.
- Will Mr Wilkins be given adequate time to arrange to leave his tied house?
- Will all staff at Arduaine Garden be offered the opportunity to transfer to other NTS gardens?
- Will the garden revert to another ownership? And, if so, to whose ownership?
- Will it be sold? And if so in what timescale?
Should the Garden be sold, this would seem an obvious candidate for an energetic community buy out. The expertise to run the garden is there already. With the renowned and wonderfully located Loch Melfort Hotel next door, the conjunction of the two could be very profitably developed and marketed.
Every crisis is an opportunity.
Final of Helensburgh’s JLB Sandwich competition
Helensburgh’s JLB Sandwich competition gets ti its final stage on 30th May. The Head Chef of the town’s Logie Baird Pub will supervise the preparation of the competing JLB sandwich recipes.
These will be put to the taste by a panel of judges chose by the event sponsors, Your Radio – and Your Radio will have and share the fun by providing live transmission of the chew out.
The winning JLB sandwich will go on the menu at the Logie Baird pub and its inventor will receive a commemorative trophy.